Page 13 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

A reluctantly mollified Giulia had left with an invitation to visit the palace sometime, while Ivo had gone away thinking that he couldn’t have made a better case for the monarchy himself, although Sofia had been wrong about the sacrifices she’d alleged he’d made.

He hadn’t, because he had no personal desires. Strong successful kings didn’t.

Now that she was one hundred percent engaged, she was so damn good at her job that almost overnight the negative headlines had been wiped out.

The press couldn’t get enough of the royal couple who, to all intents and purposes, were besotted with each other.

Everyone was fooled. The tour was progressing apace and in precisely the direction he and the palace had intended, all of which proved beyond doubt that in selecting her to be his queen he’d one hundred percent picked the right woman.

The cause of all his tension and stress, therefore, was Ivo himself.

He was the one who’d suggested warmer, closer interaction, yet now he wished he’d come up with a different, less traumatic strategy.

Eye contact with Sofia singed him like a laser.

Her smiles struck him square in the chest and stole his breath so comprehensively that his head spun.

The light touches on his back, his arm, his hand electrified every nerve ending he possessed and played havoc with his focus.

Two days ago, they’d met with the Mayor of Stallaglie, and she’d laughed at something the man had said.

Ivo didn’t think he’d ever heard her laugh quite like that before, and it had frozen him to the spot.

Suddenly gripped by the need to elicit such a joyous sound from her himself, he’d instantly lost track of the conversation and would have looked an utter imbecile had she not stepped in to rescue the situation.

He was driving himself insane. He couldn’t concentrate and couldn’t sleep.

He was in a permanent state of semi-arousal, which only added to his stress.

He could feel his control unravelling faster with every passing minute, but the more he tried to hold on to it the more it seemed to slither out of reach.

Ivo was well aware that his desire for his wife was intensified by the allure of forbidden fruit, but that didn’t alleviate the monumental sexual frustration he endured.

His temper was frayed. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d had to bite back a snappish retort, and his mood was made worse by the knowledge that it wasn’t just the press who couldn’t get enough of the seemingly more affectionate royal couple.

Deep down, in a part of him that lay buried under the crushing weight of his role—and which he did not dare acknowledge—neither could he, even though he knew that her performance was purely for the benefit of the public.

When had he experienced such unwavering support?

the devil in him taunted when he recalled, far too frequently, how she’d sung his praises in Cerbano.

When was the last time someone had defended him personally?

Never was the answer to that. In fact, the last time he’d been in a relationship, he’d been attacked.

The experience had convinced him that he was better off alone, and he’d always been absolutely fine with that.

Love was for fools like his grandfather.

Trust in anything on a personal basis was for the naive.

How he still saw the value in a team was something of a miracle, but he did.

What he had not expected, however, was to like being part of a team.

Or to feel so put out when, in private, Sofia took it all away and treated him once again to ice-cold indifference.

After all, he was used to existing in both physical and emotional isolation.

In fact, he embraced it. It meant he could do his job to preserve and strengthen his father’s legacy to the best of his abilities.

It meant his heart would never be diced into bits again.

And it wasn’t as if he wanted to know more about her parents.

Or her life before the palace. Or anything else about her, in fact.

He hadn’t been remiss . He’d focused solely on what was important, not what wasn’t.

Ivo neither recognised nor understood this version of himself.

The flare of his temper. The questioning of the judgement that he’d never doubted before.

The unspeakable desire for the act they were putting on to be real.

None of it was him. For the first time in a decade he felt on unstable, treacherous ground, and he loathed it.

But he had no clue how to climb out of the seething pit of confusion and uncertainty, and that only added to his teeth-grinding irritation.

‘I’m ready when you are.’

At the sound of her siren’s voice, which now reached into him and wrapped itself round his organs every time she opened her mouth, Ivo turned.

His jaw nearly hit the floor. His head emptied of all coherent thought, which should have been a blessing when coherent thought was so troublesome, but it wasn’t.

Because all that remained was hot, sharp, crucifying need.

Her hair was up in an elaborate arrangement to accommodate his great-great-grandmother’s diamond and emerald tiara.

More emeralds sparkled in her earlobes and around her throat, complementing the green embroidery that wove around the shimmering ivory strapless ball gown she wore.

She was so stunning his breath jammed in his lungs.

For a moment, he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even think.

It was she who eventually broke the ear-shattering silence. ‘You look nice,’ she said, snapping him out of his trance and crashing him back down to earth, because… nice ? Was that it ? She looked like a goddess and he looked nice ?

‘So do you,’ he replied with staggering understatement as he stamped out the pique to his vanity, which was wholly unworthy of a king.

‘Thank you.’

With yet another of the aggravatingly meaningless smiles she gave him when they didn’t have an audience, she lifted her chin and sailed regally across the lobby towards him.

Getting a grip and fighting back the appalling urge to propel her back into her room and keep her there until she smiled at him in a wholly more pleasurable way, Ivo held out his arm. ‘Shall we?’

‘By all means,’ she said, inclining her head and accepting it.

‘Let’s go.’

At 9:00 p.m., Sofia was taking a much-needed break on the terrace when she felt the balmy air around her shift and her skin prickle.

Three hours into the evening, she was hot and all talked out.

The effort of not swooning whenever she looked at the man she still couldn’t quite believe was her husband had completely sapped her of strength.

His black tail-coat hugged his broad shoulders as if he’d been stitched into it, and the crisp snowy white shirt highlighted the darkness of his hair and the stunning masculinity of his face.

Every time her gaze landed on him, longing clawed at her chest and made a mockery of her good intentions.

She’d lost count of the number of times she’d been told what a beautiful couple they made.

Worse, on each occasion, she’d had to fight back the alarming urge to snap that none of it was real, it was all just for show.

Her nerves were shredded. She felt as if she was fast unravelling at the seams, and she just couldn’t work out why she was finding it so hard to contain her feelings when she’d managed to do so perfectly well before.

It was deeply alarming. The inkling of empathy that she was beginning to feel for her parents as a result was even more so.

She’d dedicated years to behaving as unlike them as she possibly could.

She hated feeling that tonight, swept up and lost in emotion as she was, she might be failing.

For the sake of the charade, her composure and her belief system, therefore, she’d wanted five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes to herself. To figure out what was wrong and fix it. But apparently she wasn’t even allowed that.

‘What are you doing out here?’

Eyebrows arched, Ivo leaned back against the stone balustrade over which she was gazing at the torch-lit gardens and folded his arms across his frustratingly distracting chest.

‘Just getting a breath of fresh air.’

‘I need you back inside.’

Emotion simmered away inside her, a seething cauldron of fatigue, resentment and impatience for this evening to be over, and she pressed down on all of it hard. She didn’t know where it had suddenly sprung from, but she really had to get a grip. ‘Now?’

He nodded shortly. ‘The dancing is about to start and we’re expected to lead it.’

‘I know.’

‘Good.’

‘But can’t people wait?’

‘What?’ He frowned, as if such a thing had never occurred to him before, and a muscle ticked in his cheek. ‘No. Why should they?’

‘Well, why shouldn’t they?’

‘Because we serve them, not the other way round. I thought you understood that. I’ve mentioned it often enough.’

It was the hint of censure she could hear in his voice that did for her control. It snapped like a badly frayed rope. The cauldron bubbled over and everything she was feeling poured through her like boiling lava before she could even think to stop it.

‘I’ve done nothing but serve the people these past two weeks,’ she said hotly, while trying to keep her voice down and resisting the urge to jab him in the shoulder with her finger.

‘Do you know how many patronage requests I’ve received this evening?

Twenty-eight. And I’ll take all of them on if that’s what’s required.

I’ll play the part of the adoring consort and continue to defend you to the hilt.

I’ll dance with you and shake a million hands and do and be whatever you need.

But every now and then, just for the teensiest-tiniest moment, what I need is a break. ’